Interview with Dr. Joyce E. Glaise

CARRINGTON: May I have your name and your title, please, ma'am.
GLAISE: My full name is Joyce Elizabeth Glaise, and my title is Dr. Joyce Glaise, I guess that's the title.
CARRINGTON: Okay.
GLAISE: Yeah.
CARRINGTON: And where are you from?
GLAISE: I'm from Danville, Virginia.
CARRINGTON: And you were born there?
GLAISE: I was born there. I have lived in Danville all of my life, except for college.
CARRINGTON: Now, when -- you were there during the segregation and Massive Resistance. Give me your definition of segregation and how that affected your life in Danville.
GLAISE: Well, segregation is a divided society where you have two race or class of people that live in the same area, but of course have different facilities, different resources, different treatments, and during the time that I was in Danville in the sixties, I attended a all-segregated school, which was all black, with black teachers, all personnel was black. I was born in a black hospital, Winslow Hospital where there were all doctors -- all black doctors, black nurses, and all of the personnel in the hospital was black.
Then we had, of course, black neighborhoods. Everyone that lived in my neighborhood was black. I attended black churches. Every social area that I was a part of, the recreation area was black, and I attended movie theaters that was all black. The parks, there was a time that you would go to a park, and most of the time that was segregated.
Everything that we did -- we were not allowed to go to a restaurant. We had to stand outside by window or go to the back of the door. Every segment of society was black. Even when I went shopping downtown I would see other white -- the white society, but there was a colored bathroom, there was a colored water fountain, so we were not allowed to use the same facilities. We were restricted and limited in what we could do as blacks in the sixties.
CARRINGTON: What was life like in that black enclave? I mean, when you were there, what was it like living there?
GLAISE: Well, we had a deep sense of spiritual connection, a deep sense of a neighborhood and community that we all pulled together and we worked hard to do whatever it was necessary. We all worked as a family, as a neighborhood, as a community. As black people, we knew each other and we supported each other and we worked together, so it had a lot of good points but in a way you felt like you were -- you didn't have the privilege, you were a second-class citizen. You could not do what everybody else could do.
When you rode the bus, you had to sit in the back of the bus, or you had to stand up when a white person came in. So you were very limited and restricted as to what you could do. Your exposure was limited.
CARRINGTON: Was there a particular incident in your life that caused you to see segregation in a very glaring way, and what did that do, what did the person do?
GLAISE: Well, there, when I saw the demonstrations on television, and saw the beating and the brutality and man's inhumanity to man, the dogs being called out, the water hoses, it really appalled me, it hurt me, to see some of my friends being knocked down during demonstrations, being hit by billy sticks, it really hurt me and it made me determined that I needed to at some point when I got old enough to do something, to have some value in life, to come back and be able to work toward improving the conditions in Danville.
CARRINGTON: And what were some of the things that you saw before you left Danville to go to college? What were some of the things that you saw, the injustices that you saw in Danville?
GLAISE: Well, again, you couldn't go in certain areas. You couldn't go into a restaurant. When my sister was going to college we had -- we couldn't stop at a restaurant and eat. We couldn't, many times, use the bathroom, and if the bathroom -- if you did have a bathroom, you had to go to the back. It was labeled colored. People were -- when you went shopping; whites were given an opportunity to buy their clothes before you. I don't remember a dressing room during the time.
You were just a second-class citizen. You were restricted to doing what others were allowed to do. One of the key things in Danville was the library. We couldn't go to the main library to check out books. And of course during my school days, we didn't have the privileges of other whites in a white school. We were limited to our books, our microscopes and all of the resources that others had an opportunity to enjoy, so it made my education somewhat limited, my exposure somewhat restricted, and I was not given preferential treatment as so many others.
CARRINGTON: And then you went away to college?
GLAISE: I went away to college.
CARRINGTON: How did you feel when you left Danville and went to another environment?
GLAISE: Well, I felt like a new world had opened up to me, that I was able to -- and not all cases, because I attended a black college. I was in Greensboro during the time after the sit-in movement, and so therefore attending North Carolina A&T I really understood all that was going on during the sixties even better and some other kind of struggle continued with racism, classism, and all the things that I had experienced in Danville, but on a different scale.
But I really studied history, I really understood what was going on better when I was in college and it really gave me a strong determination to be of some value, to be of some worth when I returned home, to help others that did not understand or needed someone to lead them in a different direction.
CARRINGTON: What did you study when you were at A&T?
GLAISE: I studied history. I studied history, American history.
CARRINGTON: Why history?
GLAISE: I liked history. I wanted to know more about people, more about the culture, more about what was going on in the world and understand those concepts, and how people were governed, you know, how do you get past this restriction, how do you go about getting beyond our experiences.
CARRINGTON: And with that you went back to Danville.
GLAISE: With my education I felt like I was equipped to come back and do some things in Danville, and so certainly I came back with the idea of serving and helping youngsters to improve their quality of life and -- excuse me -- so I started with joining organizations that would help me to put resources in the community, help with tutoring, help with mentoring, help with scholarships. Then I went on and joined groups that would help with voter registration, such as Danville Voters League, and I put on a lot of drives to help in communities to register many people, and let them understand how important the vote was, how important the vote was to people, to move people in leadership positions.
CARRINGTON: What kind of reception did you get when you went went back with that enthusiasm?
GLAISE: Well, some people were not receptive. Some people were glad to see me come, but some people thought that I needed to take maybe a back road in that. They would -- I would try to involve everybody that was already involved, and I would try to be a part, but some people were happy and other people sort of said, you know, wait, we're not ready for this, and so they were a little reluctant to join par. They didn't want to be classified as militant and some people see this as a militant road to bring about change, so they were a little reluctant to join in all of a sudden, but later people came in.
CARRINGTON: Now, I understand this has moved you to write about Danville.
GLAISE: Yes.
CARRINGTON: Tell me what you wrote. What was it called and you know --
GLAISE: When I went back to the A&T to do my masters degree, and I did a thesis and that thesis was on the civil rights movement in Danville which gave me an opportunity to do research and look at what had happened, and who the leaders were, and what was going on during the time of the civil rights movement, and so I was enlightened on many things that I didn't know as a child and could relate better to it, but my masters thesis was on the civil rights movement in Danville.
CARRINGTON: And what were some of the revelations that came out of it?
GLAISE: Well, to know that there were people that were willing to give up maybe their comfortable position in an uncomfortable situation and challenge the status quo, challenge the racism that was happening, challenge the -- again, the status quo of being restricted and try to get better opportunities for more people, try to make sure that there was fair hiring practices in the police department, in the fire department, and making sure that everybody had an opportunity to open up this closed society of racism, blacks and whites, and so it was a real revelation, as well as knowing that Dr. Martin Luther King had come to Danville to give credibility to what was going on in Danville, so I felt like Danville was a leader in opening up the -- and challenging the status quo in what was happening all over America.
CARRINGTON: What did Dr. King do to get involved? When and why?
GLAISE: Dr. King came to Danville in 1963, and I think because Danville had such massive resistance to opening up the system to blacks. Danville really resisted the idea of having blacks to enjoy the same privileges that they had, and so it was a mass resistance in Danville. And of course we were almost like areas in Mississippi and Alabama and other places where, again, the dogs were called out, the fire hoses were on the people, and there was beatings in Danville, so the resistance was -- I think gave Danville the attention that some of the other cities may not have had because of the high resistance.
CARRINGTON: And what was the response to Dr. King by the black community?
GLAISE: This was a day of celebration. It was like some great celebrity had come to Danville, somebody that was larger than life to come to a small city like Danville when he was all over the country, you could see him all over the news, NBC, ABC, so the few people in the black community that had televisions that knew he was coming, it was a revelation. It gave credibility to what was going on in Danville.
CARRINGTON: And the impact of that visit?
GLAISE: I think the impact of Dr. Martin Luther King's visit was to bring more people into the struggle and to really get people more involved and excited about the whole idea of the demonstrations and what was going on in Danville.
CARRINGTON: Now, you have a story about an arrest of 48 people in Danville. Can you give me the story about those kids and why they were arrested and the subsequent story?
GLAISE: Yes. We had youngsters, 17, 18, that came out to demonstrate and take part of the civil rights movement, and those youngsters that came out to take part in the demonstrations were arrested, and they were held in the courthouse until their parents would come down to get them, and when their parents came down to get them, then their parents were arrested. And so, therefore, both parents would have to serve time in jail because their children took part in a demonstration, and what they were saying was that they were unsupervised and contributing to the delinquency of minors, and so this was something that was unheard of, that you could arrest parents of young people that were a part of this whole demonstration.
CARRINGTON: So they arrested the parents because they were -- they were contributing to the delinquency of minors, that was the --
GLAISE: Interpretation of the system at that time, to arrest parents. It was just unthinkable that, you know, this could happen, but it did happen.
CARRINGTON: Tell me about the swimming pool situation that existed, and I think still exists in Danville today.
GLAISE: Yes. Being an educator in Danville, and let me just say this, I have fought also for education, raising the level of education in Danville for young people, but one of the things, being in education, one of the things that I know and young people in Danville is that many of them have drowned because they don't have a public swimming pool in Danville, so many have of them have gone to the Dan River, jumped in just to cool off during the summer. Well, during the time that I served on city council, one of the issues I fought for was to have a public swimming pool.
The money was donated, and of course a swimming pool to this day has not been built in Danville for youngsters to be able to go and swim, and what I am hearing is that it is racism, blacks and whites cannot swim together in Danville. So I still don't know. I know there's lots of liability in the whole idea, but we've had feasibility studies and people say we would profit from that kind of industry if we had a public swimming pool, but it certainly has not happened in the City of Danville.
CARRINGTON: From your thesis that you wrote, what were some of the key things that, in terms of Massive Resistance, in terms of not accepting public accommodations, what were some of the major points that the white community dealt with and how did black people try to change that? What were some of the techniques and some of the things that they did?
GLAISE: Well, basically, the white establishment, city council, and the police department, and the city manager had said that they would not concede to the demands, that this was a group of hoodlums, thugs and they were not going to concede to their demands so, therefore, they resisted and strongly resisted. There were a few people that they did talk to that were part of the NAACP, the Reverend Dahl Thomas who was president then, they would talk to a few of what they would call the middle-class status group of people. And the other group, like Bishop Lawrence Campbell and Reverend Dunlop, they sort of played one against against the other, the SCLC group against the NAACP group, so they would talk to a certain group of people, so this is the way they went about doing business with blacks.
CARRINGTON: And how did the black community come together to make the changes needed? What were some of the strategies that the NAACP, that the SCLC -- you know, I know the SCLC came up a couple of times because Dr. Reid told us about that, what were some of the things the black community did to move that social change forward?
GLAISE: Well, they tried to compromise and come together as a people and with the status quo, and hiring, I think he made some changes with Dan River. They sat down with Dan River Mills, with the leadership of Dan River Mills, with the leadership of the city council and trying to work with them.
I think at one time when nobody was thinking they hired a black policeman. So it was like we'll do it but we're not going to do it because you demanded it. We'll work with this group but we're not going to be pushed to do anything. We are going to resist any challenges, but if we decide that this is what we want to do, we'll do it in our time period.
CARRINGTON: You were on city council?
GLAISE: Yes. I served 12 years on Danville City Council.
CARRINGTON: What was your challenge as a city councilwoman, black city councilwoman, what were some of the challenges in terms of getting the other politicians and the rest of Danville to appreciate you as a leader?
GLAISE: Well, as a Danville city council man -- council woman, the first thing that I had to do and I did was be elected, and by virtue of being elected by a majority, not block voting, not -- not -- but a general election of all people had to elect me, so it wasn't a ward system, and therefore I automatically got some respect from being elected by a general election. Secondly, I fought for education, support of a good education, public education system, because I thought that was foremost in helping people to relate to each other and work together. But that was key.
And also, I wanted to make sure that there were fair hiring practices within city hall. We needed to be the standard bearers because if we had a lilly white city hall, then how could others expect to integrate areas? So I fought to try to get more people hired in city hall.
Another issue that was very strong to me was recreation, and again, that pool issue, public swimming pool was a great issue for me because I knew children, and I knew that they wanted a public swimming pool. Danville had everything except public swimming pool in terms of recreational facilities, so that was a real problem. And not just for blacks, but it was an economic problem, too. Many of the young whites wanted swimming as well.
CARRINGTON: And you do have the ear, obviously, of young people especially in Danville, what would you tell them? What would be the strategy that you would convey to them to continue what the civil rights struggle started? How do you get to the next step? How do you really get to equal totally across the United States, totally in Danville, totally in Virginia? What strategy should they use to ensure not only them but their grandchildren will be able to get to that point?
GLAISE: First, I would -- in order -- I would tell young people that's coming along that they needed to first educate themselves and prepare themselves. Make sure they know the story and the history of what has gone on. So many of our young people do not know the history of the civil rights struggle. After they prepare themselves and study and know, then I would say to them grab hold on some issues. The struggle is not over. Grab hold on some issues and try to make life better through voter registration, voter participation.
And if they have a concern, like one young man that came to me recently wanted to have a street named after Martin Luther King in Danville, and he met with a lot of resistance, and I told him, don't give up, keep pushing, keep fighting and keep struggling, have people to join in with you, work with other people, and finally we did get a bridge named after Martin Luther King in Danville, Virginia. And this was a young law student at Duke, I think 19, 20 years old, so it shows that change can come about if you really hold strong onto what you believe and be willing to work and fight for those kinds of struggles. It is very important that we stand firm and work hard to get change moved, not only in Danville but wherever persons go in life they need to find ways that they can contribute and make sure that they vote because that's very important.
CARRINGTON: Is it anything else you'd like to say about the civil rights struggle and your experience with how it shaped you as a person?
GLAISE: Well, I think that the civil rights struggle was a very interesting time because it brought about some unity among the black community. It brought about more of a sense of community and more of a sense that nothing -- you can't take anything for granted. Everything has to be fought for, and without a struggle nothing is given, so it is very important that we struggle to continue to get what we need and never give up. Never give up. The battle is not lost until you have given up.
CARRINGTON: Okay. Stop tape. [Discussion held off the record.]
CARRINGTON: I want to know if you have any experiences with evidence of, as you were growing up, the Klu Klux Klan or the White Citizens Council.
GLAISE: I've had too much experience with that group but --
CARRINGTON: Tell us about it, what your experience was with the Klan or the White Citizens Council.
GLAISE: And it is one that I don't -- my -- well, you know, I mean that's been more when I was on council then, and I don't really want to --
CARRINGTON: You don't want to talk about it?
GLAISE: Huh-uh.
CARRINGTON: You don't want to make it public?
GLAISE: Well, it was public. It was a real public issue then.
CARRINGTON: But you would rather not talk about it?
GLAISE: No.
CARRINGTON: Okay.
GLAISE: Let's see if I had anything during the younger -- well, yeah, I better let that alone.
CARRINGTON: Okay.
GLAISE: They went around my house for six weeks.
CARRINGTON: They did what?
GLAISE: Rode around my house for six weeks.
CARRINGTON: Stop tape. You can stop tape. [Discussion held off the record.]
GLAISE: And we didn't talk about even what Danville -- you know, the industries, and where people worked, and a little bit Danville. I don't know if that's important. But also in the black community, the church was the foundation, and THE church was the foundation of the whole civil rights movement. I don't even think that was mentioned. All the meetings were with the churches and ministers and how important they were in the leadership role to the whole struggle.
CARRINGTON: As you saw, [inaudible] we have Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Ralph Abernathy, what were the ministers like? What were they doing in Danville? Were they galvanized to work toward this particular problem or what was going on?
GLAISE: They were the foundation of the civil rights movement, the four ministers in Danville were the ones that led the civil rights movement. Bishop Lawrence Campbell, Reverend Dunlop, Reverend Chase, Bishop Lawrence Campbell, they were the key leaders of the whole struggle so the church played such an important part, and the ministers were the leaders of this entire movement, the way we saw it.
CARRINGTON: And because they were ministers, how did that affect not only the black community but as you faced up against white people on massive resistance and desegregation, how did that collar affect the way the way people heard the message?
GLAISE: Well, I think, and if I'm hearing you right, is that the people were a little more sensitive coming from a minister.
CARRINGTON: Uh-huh.
GLAISE: They were a little more sensitive, and they did hear the message. And many of these ministers brought their congregations out so they had a defined group of people already that were participating because they -- they were leaders in the community. Reverend McGhee, Hildrop McGhee, a large church, brought many people out, so I think that's a very important aspect.
I don't know if we covered it or not in terms of the church or the leaders or the ministers, but they were from what I could see the real emphasis on this whole ordeal. And outsiders, we had many outsiders that were sent into Danville to help us from Atlanta, all over, that Martin Luther King and other people sent from SNCC, CORE, we had all of the groups in Danville. So, you know, I think Danville was probably the most publicized area anyway, and probably got more, not only publicity, but they did more resistance and fighting for civil rights than probably any other place in Virginia, or -- other than Alabama, Mississippi and areas like that in the south, deep south.
CARRINGTON: Because I understand that when King decided to -- when he came to selection of the place to go, Alabama, the other place is Danville that he was looking at for -- I'm not going to say kick the movement all off, but selected a place where there was deep-seated racism.
GLAISE: Deep-seated racism. And I think they were trying -- they still are trying to preserve the history of being the confederacy being the place where they were holding out, and so -- it was more difficult in Danville than anywhere else except for the deep south.
CARRINGTON: Thank, you ma'am.
[MR. CARRINGTON WAS ASKED TO HAVE DR. GLAISE TALK ABOUT HER FEMALE ROLE MODELS IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.]
CARRINGTON: Tell me who your female role models were in the civil rights movement.
GLAISE: Well, my female role model was Ruth Harvey who was an attorney. She took on many of those cases. She was a very outspoken attorney that didn't mind speaking up and telling the way she felt. She was very articulate, very educated, very wise, understood what was going on and didn't mind fighting.
CARRINGTON: What were some of the cases that you dealt with or some of the issues she championed and won during --
GLAISE: Well, mostly she took on -- she worked free for -- to try to help with the persons that were charged. Many of these people had charges against them for the demonstrations when they were arrested, and they had to have bail money in order to get out, they had to have a lot of things, and a lawyer. And many times they would have to have the lawyer there each day away from their job in order to stall the situation, so Ruth was very instrumental in doing many of these cases.
CARRINGTON: Did she secure the bail money from outside of Danville? I mean a lot of times black people, because of their economic situation, either didn't have the money or their source of money was from the white power structure, so how did those dollars come into Danville?
GLAISE: Many of the dollars came in from outside, but many people that didn't participate in the demonstrations used their own personal money, morticians, funeral homes would give up money, bail bondsmen and banks. We had a black bank in Danville, First State Bank, and M.C. Martin would give up money for that particular reason to help in bailing out many of the demonstrators.
And of course the white power structure had called in M.C. Martin at First State Bank and tried to set him against the demonstrators, but he did not play that role. He was there to help the demonstrators, so I find that very interesting.
CARRINGTON: Now, who are some of your other female role models? Anyone else?
GLAISE: Well, there was the mayor's wife, of course, and the Mayor, Charles Harris, was one of my role models as well, but his wife was the first African American principal in Danville, and she was very much behind whatever Charles did, also very supportive of the demonstrations and what was going on during the time. But I had classmates and friends, Dorothy Moore, and many of the people that I knew that I went to school with that participated in the demonstrations.
CARRINGTON: When you wrote your thesis and you went to interview people about what happened in Danville, what kind of reception did you get from the folks that you interviewed?
GLAISE: Well, some of them wanted to talk about the demonstrations, and some of them wanted to forget it. But I sort of felt that I got a pretty good reception from most of the people that I knew, Lawrence Campbell or Thurmond Eackles, who was very much a part of the demonstrations and a part of my class and led the youngsters, he was one that of course his parents were arrested because he took part in the demonstrations.
CARRINGTON: And that was Mr. Eackles, right?
GLAISE: Yes.
CARRINGTON: Now, tell me about Lawrence Campbell.
GLAISE: Lawrence Campbell was one of the key leaders of the demonstrations, and he's one that remained in Danville. The rest of them left Danville after the demonstrations or so forth, but he's still speaking out on civil rights issues every day. He's talking every day and every week he has a radio broadcast where he talks about how people need to stand up and fight for their civil rights, and the problem that we are having in Danville still with hiring of blacks in many areas, and so we still have problems. But Lawrence Campbell was one of the key persons I would say that sort of stuck in there.
CARRINGTON: Anything else you want to tell our audience?
GLAISE: Well, again, Danville was a very unique and strange area during the sixties. You can come back and make contributions to your home town or anyplace in America needs work, and I would encourage anybody to get involved, get involved through any way you can to make a difference in life because if you are not your life is valueless, you have no use if you are not a part of making this world better, and so I encourage people to -- and especially youngsters to get involved in some civic activity to make life better.
CARRINGTON: Thank, you ma'am.
END

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Dr. Joyce E. Glaise, educator, community activist, former member of the Danville, Virginia City Council. She discussed: the racial situation in Danville, Virginia; the Danville Voters League; Dr. Martin Luther King's trip to Danville in 1963; recreation in Danville; the church's role in the Civil Rights movement; and activists Ruth Harvey and Lawrence Campbell.

Note

This interview was conducted March 20, 2003 at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond. Ronald E. Carrington, President of Media Consultants Global, Inc. of Richmond, was the director-producer of the video taping and interviewed the interviewees. Historian Dr. Betsy Brinson conducted preliminary oral interviews. The text of the oral history was transcribed by Halasz Reporting and Video, Richmond. Other editing by the staff of Special Collections and Archives, VCU Libraries.

Voices of Freedom: videotaped oral histories of leaders of the Civil Rights movement in Virginia

Transcription of interview

CARRINGTON: May I have your name and your title, please, ma'am.
GLAISE: My full name is Joyce Elizabeth Glaise, and my title is Dr. Joyce Glaise, I guess that's the title.
CARRINGTON: Okay.
GLAISE: Yeah.
CARRINGTON: And where are you from?
GLAISE: I'm from Danville, Virginia.
CARRINGTON: And you were born there?
GLAISE: I was born there. I have lived in Danville all of my life, except for college.
CARRINGTON: Now, when -- you were there during the segregation and Massive Resistance. Give me your definition of segregation and how that affected your life in Danville.
GLAISE: Well, segregation is a divided society where you have two race or class of people that live in the same area, but of course have different facilities, different resources, different treatments, and during the time that I was in Danville in the sixties, I attended a all-segregated school, which was all black, with black teachers, all personnel was black. I was born in a black hospital, Winslow Hospital where there were all doctors -- all black doctors, black nurses, and all of the personnel in the hospital was black.
Then we had, of course, black neighborhoods. Everyone that lived in my neighborhood was black. I attended black churches. Every social area that I was a part of, the recreation area was black, and I attended movie theaters that was all black. The parks, there was a time that you would go to a park, and most of the time that was segregated.
Everything that we did -- we were not allowed to go to a restaurant. We had to stand outside by window or go to the back of the door. Every segment of society was black. Even when I went shopping downtown I would see other white -- the white society, but there was a colored bathroom, there was a colored water fountain, so we were not allowed to use the same facilities. We were restricted and limited in what we could do as blacks in the sixties.
CARRINGTON: What was life like in that black enclave? I mean, when you were there, what was it like living there?
GLAISE: Well, we had a deep sense of spiritual connection, a deep sense of a neighborhood and community that we all pulled together and we worked hard to do whatever it was necessary. We all worked as a family, as a neighborhood, as a community. As black people, we knew each other and we supported each other and we worked together, so it had a lot of good points but in a way you felt like you were -- you didn't have the privilege, you were a second-class citizen. You could not do what everybody else could do.
When you rode the bus, you had to sit in the back of the bus, or you had to stand up when a white person came in. So you were very limited and restricted as to what you could do. Your exposure was limited.
CARRINGTON: Was there a particular incident in your life that caused you to see segregation in a very glaring way, and what did that do, what did the person do?
GLAISE: Well, there, when I saw the demonstrations on television, and saw the beating and the brutality and man's inhumanity to man, the dogs being called out, the water hoses, it really appalled me, it hurt me, to see some of my friends being knocked down during demonstrations, being hit by billy sticks, it really hurt me and it made me determined that I needed to at some point when I got old enough to do something, to have some value in life, to come back and be able to work toward improving the conditions in Danville.
CARRINGTON: And what were some of the things that you saw before you left Danville to go to college? What were some of the things that you saw, the injustices that you saw in Danville?
GLAISE: Well, again, you couldn't go in certain areas. You couldn't go into a restaurant. When my sister was going to college we had -- we couldn't stop at a restaurant and eat. We couldn't, many times, use the bathroom, and if the bathroom -- if you did have a bathroom, you had to go to the back. It was labeled colored. People were -- when you went shopping; whites were given an opportunity to buy their clothes before you. I don't remember a dressing room during the time.
You were just a second-class citizen. You were restricted to doing what others were allowed to do. One of the key things in Danville was the library. We couldn't go to the main library to check out books. And of course during my school days, we didn't have the privileges of other whites in a white school. We were limited to our books, our microscopes and all of the resources that others had an opportunity to enjoy, so it made my education somewhat limited, my exposure somewhat restricted, and I was not given preferential treatment as so many others.
CARRINGTON: And then you went away to college?
GLAISE: I went away to college.
CARRINGTON: How did you feel when you left Danville and went to another environment?
GLAISE: Well, I felt like a new world had opened up to me, that I was able to -- and not all cases, because I attended a black college. I was in Greensboro during the time after the sit-in movement, and so therefore attending North Carolina A&T I really understood all that was going on during the sixties even better and some other kind of struggle continued with racism, classism, and all the things that I had experienced in Danville, but on a different scale.
But I really studied history, I really understood what was going on better when I was in college and it really gave me a strong determination to be of some value, to be of some worth when I returned home, to help others that did not understand or needed someone to lead them in a different direction.
CARRINGTON: What did you study when you were at A&T?
GLAISE: I studied history. I studied history, American history.
CARRINGTON: Why history?
GLAISE: I liked history. I wanted to know more about people, more about the culture, more about what was going on in the world and understand those concepts, and how people were governed, you know, how do you get past this restriction, how do you go about getting beyond our experiences.
CARRINGTON: And with that you went back to Danville.
GLAISE: With my education I felt like I was equipped to come back and do some things in Danville, and so certainly I came back with the idea of serving and helping youngsters to improve their quality of life and -- excuse me -- so I started with joining organizations that would help me to put resources in the community, help with tutoring, help with mentoring, help with scholarships. Then I went on and joined groups that would help with voter registration, such as Danville Voters League, and I put on a lot of drives to help in communities to register many people, and let them understand how important the vote was, how important the vote was to people, to move people in leadership positions.
CARRINGTON: What kind of reception did you get when you went went back with that enthusiasm?
GLAISE: Well, some people were not receptive. Some people were glad to see me come, but some people thought that I needed to take maybe a back road in that. They would -- I would try to involve everybody that was already involved, and I would try to be a part, but some people were happy and other people sort of said, you know, wait, we're not ready for this, and so they were a little reluctant to join par. They didn't want to be classified as militant and some people see this as a militant road to bring about change, so they were a little reluctant to join in all of a sudden, but later people came in.
CARRINGTON: Now, I understand this has moved you to write about Danville.
GLAISE: Yes.
CARRINGTON: Tell me what you wrote. What was it called and you know --
GLAISE: When I went back to the A&T to do my masters degree, and I did a thesis and that thesis was on the civil rights movement in Danville which gave me an opportunity to do research and look at what had happened, and who the leaders were, and what was going on during the time of the civil rights movement, and so I was enlightened on many things that I didn't know as a child and could relate better to it, but my masters thesis was on the civil rights movement in Danville.
CARRINGTON: And what were some of the revelations that came out of it?
GLAISE: Well, to know that there were people that were willing to give up maybe their comfortable position in an uncomfortable situation and challenge the status quo, challenge the racism that was happening, challenge the -- again, the status quo of being restricted and try to get better opportunities for more people, try to make sure that there was fair hiring practices in the police department, in the fire department, and making sure that everybody had an opportunity to open up this closed society of racism, blacks and whites, and so it was a real revelation, as well as knowing that Dr. Martin Luther King had come to Danville to give credibility to what was going on in Danville, so I felt like Danville was a leader in opening up the -- and challenging the status quo in what was happening all over America.
CARRINGTON: What did Dr. King do to get involved? When and why?
GLAISE: Dr. King came to Danville in 1963, and I think because Danville had such massive resistance to opening up the system to blacks. Danville really resisted the idea of having blacks to enjoy the same privileges that they had, and so it was a mass resistance in Danville. And of course we were almost like areas in Mississippi and Alabama and other places where, again, the dogs were called out, the fire hoses were on the people, and there was beatings in Danville, so the resistance was -- I think gave Danville the attention that some of the other cities may not have had because of the high resistance.
CARRINGTON: And what was the response to Dr. King by the black community?
GLAISE: This was a day of celebration. It was like some great celebrity had come to Danville, somebody that was larger than life to come to a small city like Danville when he was all over the country, you could see him all over the news, NBC, ABC, so the few people in the black community that had televisions that knew he was coming, it was a revelation. It gave credibility to what was going on in Danville.
CARRINGTON: And the impact of that visit?
GLAISE: I think the impact of Dr. Martin Luther King's visit was to bring more people into the struggle and to really get people more involved and excited about the whole idea of the demonstrations and what was going on in Danville.
CARRINGTON: Now, you have a story about an arrest of 48 people in Danville. Can you give me the story about those kids and why they were arrested and the subsequent story?
GLAISE: Yes. We had youngsters, 17, 18, that came out to demonstrate and take part of the civil rights movement, and those youngsters that came out to take part in the demonstrations were arrested, and they were held in the courthouse until their parents would come down to get them, and when their parents came down to get them, then their parents were arrested. And so, therefore, both parents would have to serve time in jail because their children took part in a demonstration, and what they were saying was that they were unsupervised and contributing to the delinquency of minors, and so this was something that was unheard of, that you could arrest parents of young people that were a part of this whole demonstration.
CARRINGTON: So they arrested the parents because they were -- they were contributing to the delinquency of minors, that was the --
GLAISE: Interpretation of the system at that time, to arrest parents. It was just unthinkable that, you know, this could happen, but it did happen.
CARRINGTON: Tell me about the swimming pool situation that existed, and I think still exists in Danville today.
GLAISE: Yes. Being an educator in Danville, and let me just say this, I have fought also for education, raising the level of education in Danville for young people, but one of the things, being in education, one of the things that I know and young people in Danville is that many of them have drowned because they don't have a public swimming pool in Danville, so many have of them have gone to the Dan River, jumped in just to cool off during the summer. Well, during the time that I served on city council, one of the issues I fought for was to have a public swimming pool.
The money was donated, and of course a swimming pool to this day has not been built in Danville for youngsters to be able to go and swim, and what I am hearing is that it is racism, blacks and whites cannot swim together in Danville. So I still don't know. I know there's lots of liability in the whole idea, but we've had feasibility studies and people say we would profit from that kind of industry if we had a public swimming pool, but it certainly has not happened in the City of Danville.
CARRINGTON: From your thesis that you wrote, what were some of the key things that, in terms of Massive Resistance, in terms of not accepting public accommodations, what were some of the major points that the white community dealt with and how did black people try to change that? What were some of the techniques and some of the things that they did?
GLAISE: Well, basically, the white establishment, city council, and the police department, and the city manager had said that they would not concede to the demands, that this was a group of hoodlums, thugs and they were not going to concede to their demands so, therefore, they resisted and strongly resisted. There were a few people that they did talk to that were part of the NAACP, the Reverend Dahl Thomas who was president then, they would talk to a few of what they would call the middle-class status group of people. And the other group, like Bishop Lawrence Campbell and Reverend Dunlop, they sort of played one against against the other, the SCLC group against the NAACP group, so they would talk to a certain group of people, so this is the way they went about doing business with blacks.
CARRINGTON: And how did the black community come together to make the changes needed? What were some of the strategies that the NAACP, that the SCLC -- you know, I know the SCLC came up a couple of times because Dr. Reid told us about that, what were some of the things the black community did to move that social change forward?
GLAISE: Well, they tried to compromise and come together as a people and with the status quo, and hiring, I think he made some changes with Dan River. They sat down with Dan River Mills, with the leadership of Dan River Mills, with the leadership of the city council and trying to work with them.
I think at one time when nobody was thinking they hired a black policeman. So it was like we'll do it but we're not going to do it because you demanded it. We'll work with this group but we're not going to be pushed to do anything. We are going to resist any challenges, but if we decide that this is what we want to do, we'll do it in our time period.
CARRINGTON: You were on city council?
GLAISE: Yes. I served 12 years on Danville City Council.
CARRINGTON: What was your challenge as a city councilwoman, black city councilwoman, what were some of the challenges in terms of getting the other politicians and the rest of Danville to appreciate you as a leader?
GLAISE: Well, as a Danville city council man -- council woman, the first thing that I had to do and I did was be elected, and by virtue of being elected by a majority, not block voting, not -- not -- but a general election of all people had to elect me, so it wasn't a ward system, and therefore I automatically got some respect from being elected by a general election. Secondly, I fought for education, support of a good education, public education system, because I thought that was foremost in helping people to relate to each other and work together. But that was key.
And also, I wanted to make sure that there were fair hiring practices within city hall. We needed to be the standard bearers because if we had a lilly white city hall, then how could others expect to integrate areas? So I fought to try to get more people hired in city hall.
Another issue that was very strong to me was recreation, and again, that pool issue, public swimming pool was a great issue for me because I knew children, and I knew that they wanted a public swimming pool. Danville had everything except public swimming pool in terms of recreational facilities, so that was a real problem. And not just for blacks, but it was an economic problem, too. Many of the young whites wanted swimming as well.
CARRINGTON: And you do have the ear, obviously, of young people especially in Danville, what would you tell them? What would be the strategy that you would convey to them to continue what the civil rights struggle started? How do you get to the next step? How do you really get to equal totally across the United States, totally in Danville, totally in Virginia? What strategy should they use to ensure not only them but their grandchildren will be able to get to that point?
GLAISE: First, I would -- in order -- I would tell young people that's coming along that they needed to first educate themselves and prepare themselves. Make sure they know the story and the history of what has gone on. So many of our young people do not know the history of the civil rights struggle. After they prepare themselves and study and know, then I would say to them grab hold on some issues. The struggle is not over. Grab hold on some issues and try to make life better through voter registration, voter participation.
And if they have a concern, like one young man that came to me recently wanted to have a street named after Martin Luther King in Danville, and he met with a lot of resistance, and I told him, don't give up, keep pushing, keep fighting and keep struggling, have people to join in with you, work with other people, and finally we did get a bridge named after Martin Luther King in Danville, Virginia. And this was a young law student at Duke, I think 19, 20 years old, so it shows that change can come about if you really hold strong onto what you believe and be willing to work and fight for those kinds of struggles. It is very important that we stand firm and work hard to get change moved, not only in Danville but wherever persons go in life they need to find ways that they can contribute and make sure that they vote because that's very important.
CARRINGTON: Is it anything else you'd like to say about the civil rights struggle and your experience with how it shaped you as a person?
GLAISE: Well, I think that the civil rights struggle was a very interesting time because it brought about some unity among the black community. It brought about more of a sense of community and more of a sense that nothing -- you can't take anything for granted. Everything has to be fought for, and without a struggle nothing is given, so it is very important that we struggle to continue to get what we need and never give up. Never give up. The battle is not lost until you have given up.
CARRINGTON: Okay. Stop tape. [Discussion held off the record.]
CARRINGTON: I want to know if you have any experiences with evidence of, as you were growing up, the Klu Klux Klan or the White Citizens Council.
GLAISE: I've had too much experience with that group but --
CARRINGTON: Tell us about it, what your experience was with the Klan or the White Citizens Council.
GLAISE: And it is one that I don't -- my -- well, you know, I mean that's been more when I was on council then, and I don't really want to --
CARRINGTON: You don't want to talk about it?
GLAISE: Huh-uh.
CARRINGTON: You don't want to make it public?
GLAISE: Well, it was public. It was a real public issue then.
CARRINGTON: But you would rather not talk about it?
GLAISE: No.
CARRINGTON: Okay.
GLAISE: Let's see if I had anything during the younger -- well, yeah, I better let that alone.
CARRINGTON: Okay.
GLAISE: They went around my house for six weeks.
CARRINGTON: They did what?
GLAISE: Rode around my house for six weeks.
CARRINGTON: Stop tape. You can stop tape. [Discussion held off the record.]
GLAISE: And we didn't talk about even what Danville -- you know, the industries, and where people worked, and a little bit Danville. I don't know if that's important. But also in the black community, the church was the foundation, and THE church was the foundation of the whole civil rights movement. I don't even think that was mentioned. All the meetings were with the churches and ministers and how important they were in the leadership role to the whole struggle.
CARRINGTON: As you saw, [inaudible] we have Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Ralph Abernathy, what were the ministers like? What were they doing in Danville? Were they galvanized to work toward this particular problem or what was going on?
GLAISE: They were the foundation of the civil rights movement, the four ministers in Danville were the ones that led the civil rights movement. Bishop Lawrence Campbell, Reverend Dunlop, Reverend Chase, Bishop Lawrence Campbell, they were the key leaders of the whole struggle so the church played such an important part, and the ministers were the leaders of this entire movement, the way we saw it.
CARRINGTON: And because they were ministers, how did that affect not only the black community but as you faced up against white people on massive resistance and desegregation, how did that collar affect the way the way people heard the message?
GLAISE: Well, I think, and if I'm hearing you right, is that the people were a little more sensitive coming from a minister.
CARRINGTON: Uh-huh.
GLAISE: They were a little more sensitive, and they did hear the message. And many of these ministers brought their congregations out so they had a defined group of people already that were participating because they -- they were leaders in the community. Reverend McGhee, Hildrop McGhee, a large church, brought many people out, so I think that's a very important aspect.
I don't know if we covered it or not in terms of the church or the leaders or the ministers, but they were from what I could see the real emphasis on this whole ordeal. And outsiders, we had many outsiders that were sent into Danville to help us from Atlanta, all over, that Martin Luther King and other people sent from SNCC, CORE, we had all of the groups in Danville. So, you know, I think Danville was probably the most publicized area anyway, and probably got more, not only publicity, but they did more resistance and fighting for civil rights than probably any other place in Virginia, or -- other than Alabama, Mississippi and areas like that in the south, deep south.
CARRINGTON: Because I understand that when King decided to -- when he came to selection of the place to go, Alabama, the other place is Danville that he was looking at for -- I'm not going to say kick the movement all off, but selected a place where there was deep-seated racism.
GLAISE: Deep-seated racism. And I think they were trying -- they still are trying to preserve the history of being the confederacy being the place where they were holding out, and so -- it was more difficult in Danville than anywhere else except for the deep south.
CARRINGTON: Thank, you ma'am.
[MR. CARRINGTON WAS ASKED TO HAVE DR. GLAISE TALK ABOUT HER FEMALE ROLE MODELS IN THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT.]
CARRINGTON: Tell me who your female role models were in the civil rights movement.
GLAISE: Well, my female role model was Ruth Harvey who was an attorney. She took on many of those cases. She was a very outspoken attorney that didn't mind speaking up and telling the way she felt. She was very articulate, very educated, very wise, understood what was going on and didn't mind fighting.
CARRINGTON: What were some of the cases that you dealt with or some of the issues she championed and won during --
GLAISE: Well, mostly she took on -- she worked free for -- to try to help with the persons that were charged. Many of these people had charges against them for the demonstrations when they were arrested, and they had to have bail money in order to get out, they had to have a lot of things, and a lawyer. And many times they would have to have the lawyer there each day away from their job in order to stall the situation, so Ruth was very instrumental in doing many of these cases.
CARRINGTON: Did she secure the bail money from outside of Danville? I mean a lot of times black people, because of their economic situation, either didn't have the money or their source of money was from the white power structure, so how did those dollars come into Danville?
GLAISE: Many of the dollars came in from outside, but many people that didn't participate in the demonstrations used their own personal money, morticians, funeral homes would give up money, bail bondsmen and banks. We had a black bank in Danville, First State Bank, and M.C. Martin would give up money for that particular reason to help in bailing out many of the demonstrators.
And of course the white power structure had called in M.C. Martin at First State Bank and tried to set him against the demonstrators, but he did not play that role. He was there to help the demonstrators, so I find that very interesting.
CARRINGTON: Now, who are some of your other female role models? Anyone else?
GLAISE: Well, there was the mayor's wife, of course, and the Mayor, Charles Harris, was one of my role models as well, but his wife was the first African American principal in Danville, and she was very much behind whatever Charles did, also very supportive of the demonstrations and what was going on during the time. But I had classmates and friends, Dorothy Moore, and many of the people that I knew that I went to school with that participated in the demonstrations.
CARRINGTON: When you wrote your thesis and you went to interview people about what happened in Danville, what kind of reception did you get from the folks that you interviewed?
GLAISE: Well, some of them wanted to talk about the demonstrations, and some of them wanted to forget it. But I sort of felt that I got a pretty good reception from most of the people that I knew, Lawrence Campbell or Thurmond Eackles, who was very much a part of the demonstrations and a part of my class and led the youngsters, he was one that of course his parents were arrested because he took part in the demonstrations.
CARRINGTON: And that was Mr. Eackles, right?
GLAISE: Yes.
CARRINGTON: Now, tell me about Lawrence Campbell.
GLAISE: Lawrence Campbell was one of the key leaders of the demonstrations, and he's one that remained in Danville. The rest of them left Danville after the demonstrations or so forth, but he's still speaking out on civil rights issues every day. He's talking every day and every week he has a radio broadcast where he talks about how people need to stand up and fight for their civil rights, and the problem that we are having in Danville still with hiring of blacks in many areas, and so we still have problems. But Lawrence Campbell was one of the key persons I would say that sort of stuck in there.
CARRINGTON: Anything else you want to tell our audience?
GLAISE: Well, again, Danville was a very unique and strange area during the sixties. You can come back and make contributions to your home town or anyplace in America needs work, and I would encourage anybody to get involved, get involved through any way you can to make a difference in life because if you are not your life is valueless, you have no use if you are not a part of making this world better, and so I encourage people to -- and especially youngsters to get involved in some civic activity to make life better.
CARRINGTON: Thank, you ma'am.
END